


lies you tell your doctor

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e18 Providence, F/M, Hydra Grant Ward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3977536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He lets a little of his smile show through. “I’ll be</i> fine<i>, Simmons. I can take care of myself. These aren’t even that bad.” </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	lies you tell your doctor

“Simmons,” Grant says, trying to hold back his annoyance. “Shouldn’t you be leaving?”

The sooner she and the others leave for Portland, the sooner Grant can get the damn hard drive decrypted and get the hell out of here. He doesn’t need Simmons holding things up.

“Yes, in just a moment,” she says, sounding breathless as she jogs down the hallway. She looks over her shoulder when she reaches him, like she’s worried she’s been followed. He can’t help taking another look around himself, but they’re alone.

“Something wrong?” he asks. He does  _not_  need trouble right now.

“No, nothing.”

He raises an eyebrow incredulously. 

“All right, yes. It’s just …” She looks over her shoulder again and then leans close. He follows suit, using one hand on the wall beside them to take some of the weight off his ribs. “I think … I think one of the team might be HYDRA.”

He startles back, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“I know it’s silly,” she’s saying, practically to herself. “It’s just you’ve been gone in the midst of all this crisis, and I can’t help feeling like there’s something  _off_. And then I start questioning  _everyone_  and I just …” She holds her arms tight around herself and looks to him with pleading eyes. “Promise me you’ll keep your guard up while we’re gone.”

“You think Skye or May could be HYDRA?”

She shifts uncomfortably. “Skye was part of the Rising Tide when we found her. And I’m well aware that just hours before you breached the Hub, Coulson had May locked up. And,” she adds heavily, “we really don’t know anything about this Koenig fellow. I just can’t bear the thought of returning to find that something’s happened. You’re not at your best, Ward.”

So that’s it. He’s known for a while that she’s got a crush on him. It’s nothing serious, just some physical attraction compounded by all the times he’s saved her life.

He lets a little of his smile show through. “I’ll be  _fine_ , Simmons. I can take care of myself. These aren’t even that bad.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders and starts pulling her in the direction of the hanger; he’s really got to get her out of here already.

“Good,” she says absently, “that’s good.” She doesn’t sound entirely convinced, but her shoulders relax. 

He realizes suddenly that this is the last time he’s ever gonna see Simmons. Or he hopes it will be. If they ever meet again, it’ll be as enemies, and he’d really hate to kill her. 

Maybe he wouldn’t have to though. Simmons isn’t exactly a physical threat, and HYDRA could definitely use her. It wouldn’t be difficult to force her along for the ride.

A sharp pain in his side has him stumbling back from her. He can’t quite get his feet to land correctly under him and ends up sliding down the far wall.

“Sorry,” she mouths. Or maybe she says it. There’s this kind of roar in his ears. He watches her pocket a syringe - she injected him with something. Bitch.

His head hits the ground and his eyes fall shut. He can’t get them to reopen. The roaring is still there, but he can hear Simmons’ screams for help through it. Not the words, but the sound of her voice. It’s kind of comforting.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He comes awake all at once, disoriented and grabbing at the railings on the bed. He’s in the medpod.

“Oh,  _there_  you are,” Simmons says brightly. “Sorry about that. You’re a bit larger than Fitz, and since he’s the only one who I’ve tested that particular dendrotoxin variation on, I had to adjust the dosage accordingly and, well, you see how  _that_  went.”

The second she comes near enough, he grabs her arm so tight it’s sure to bruise. She winces, but doesn’t cry out or try to shake him off.

“What the hell did you do to me?” he demands, barely keeping his anger in check. Not that he really wants to. Two days ago he was holding the berserker staff in his hands again - using gloves, of course. He kind of wishes he had it now.

She gives him a pitying kind of look. “I drugged you,” she says, like it’s obvious. Which, yeah, it is, but he was kind of hoping for  _more_. “Now will you let me check your vitals? You’ve been through quite the ordeal.”

“ _Why?_ ” he asks, refusing to let go of her arm no matter how she twists it. Finally, she sighs and folds down the railing on that side of the bed so she can sit beside his hip. It’s … not what he was expecting, though it does, admittedly, take a little pressure off her arm.

“It was a very clever story,” she says, “and I’m not surprised the others bought it.”

He narrows his eyes, considers his options. He’s not tied down, and whatever she’s done to him, he still retains full use of his limbs. (Well, as much as he can after that beating Garrett gave him.) There also aren’t any guards he can see. If Coulson suspected him, Simmons is the last person he’d be sending in alone to talk to him.

“The others left for Portland nearly an hour ago,” she says helpfully.

“You think I’m HYDRA,” he says, trying to project hurt along with his natural wariness. If the others really are gone, she’s not much of a problem, but if they’re not…

She frowns, disappointed. “Either you’re HYDRA or you’re working for some third party we haven’t yet encountered.”

“And what makes you think that?”

She looks down at her arm. It’s white where he’s holding it; it has to hurt. “Your hands,” she says. She draws her fingers over his gently, sending a jolt of awareness all the way down his spine. She smiles, a small, dreamy thing. “You’ve got all sorts of new injuries, but almost none of them are defensive. Or offensive, for that matter. Whoever attacked you, you didn’t put up a fight.” She doesn’t sound happy about that. In fact, she sounds just as angry as she does whenever he gets hurt throwing himself between the team and danger.

He relaxes his hold on her arm, but doesn’t let go just yet. “What are you planning to do about it?” he asks. Denying the truth isn’t gonna get him anywhere. If Simmons has figured it out, he’s certainly not smart enough to make her unbelieve it. And besides, this whole set-up has him curious.

She doesn’t look at him, keeps looking at his hand on her arm instead. She explores the back with her fingers, tracing the lines of his bones and drawing circles around healing cuts and abrasions. “At the Hub, Agent Hand gave Trip and me the option of jumping ship, of joining HYDRA to save our own lives. We fought back instead, choosing to go down fighting than turn traitor.”

He knows the story, heard Trip tell the whole thing back at the Hub while Simmons was clearing him for the team to escort Garrett. He didn’t think much of Simmons’ silence then. Now he thinks maybe he should have.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot, the last few days,” she says. “And while I stand by the decision I made then, I’m not so sure I would make the same one now.”

He ignores the pain in his ribs as he sits up, coming closer to her. She doesn’t react, doesn’t even seem to notice except that she pulls her arm - and his hand - into her lap.

“I drugged you because I needed the excuse to stay behind. Because…” She looks up, and is slightly startled to find him sitting to close. Her eyes are wide, her lower lip red and swollen from her worrying it. Her gaze drops to his mouth, just for a second. “SHIELD is done,” she says softly. “And as far as I can see, it was mostly HYDRA anyway. So when you go - when you finish with whatever it is you came here to do - I would very much like to go with you.”

It’s unexpected - so unexpected that he half-wonders if he’s still knocked out or if those drugs she gave him cause hallucinations - but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Simmons is smart; it’s not a surprise she can see which way the wind is blowing. And bringing her in - not to be tortured or conditioned into falling in line, but  _willingly_  - is gonna earn him some major brownie points.

He brushes her hair over her ear and lets his hand linger there, cupping the back of her head. “I think we can make that happen.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt from a tumblr anon: _Jemma is the one to discover Ward is HYDRA and decides to join him._ I’ve actually wanted to write a fic with this exact premise for a while now, but I had no idea what would happen or when or anything. Until I got this prompt, that is. So thank you, anon, for helping me work through this bunny.


End file.
